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Patch 4.2 is bringing us 10 new rare hunter pets. Rather than just your normal “drop a trap and hit tame” pets, these ones actually present a taming challenge, requiring a specific strategy for each one.

As gear improves and our max level increases (in MoP and beyond) these challenges will become easier and easier. The strategies included will not always be necessary, but will come in handy for those who aren’t at endgame or aren’t geared well.

Here’s a brief rundown of each of these new pets, and what the hunter community has learned about them so far. If you’re interested in further reading, I’d recommend the Petopia Forums, from which a few pieces of information were pulled for this article.

If aesthetics are your thing, and you only want the “cool looking” pets, here is the Wowheadnews first look at the pets. Note that these are datamined videos:

Blizzard’s newest gimmick is to give us an actual challenge in taming the 4.2 hunter pets beyond camping spawn sites. Several will require inventive tactics or friends to help you survive. Others will require progression in the two new factions that will be introduced in 4.2. Below is a rundown of the pets and the tactics that will be needed to tame them. For any of them, it’s a nice idea to be BM (with limited exceptions) and have a Corehound for the Ancient Hysteria buff that reduces the time needed to tame. You will need to cast it, dismiss your pet, then begin the tame — after which you’ll still have your 40% haste buff that will cut the cast time of Tame Beast nearly in half.

A few of the rares will not allow for this buildup, but it’s good general advice. All of these pets require you to be level 85.

The 10 new patch 4.2 Hunter Pets

Anhka (Spirit Beast Cat – exotic)
Anhka’s gimmick is a simple one, and I believe reveals Blizzard’s secret lust for all hunters. To tame Anhka, we get naked. Well, you can wear your trinkets if you want. Just nothing that provides armor. Anhka’s damaging attacks scale with armor. So if you’re wearing it, you’ll be 1-2 shot.Where: Here’s a map showing known spawn points for both Anhka and Magria.

Magria (Spirit Beast Cat – exotic)
Magria is the same as Anhka, and requires a lack of armor. I’ve been told that dancing provocatively helps as well, but only if you’re an elf.Where: Again, the Regrowth (see map for Anhka). A disappointing lack of creativity from Anhka, but a step in the right direction for a class and spec (BM) that has seen the actual mastering of beasts woefully underrepresented previously.

Ban’thalos (Spirit Beast Owl – exotic)
I remember roaming around in the Blasted Lands a while back, looking for a cool skin for a Carrion Bird. I became frustrated when all the birds seemed to be flying too high to tame. Instead of becoming creative (this was before Old World flight), I simply went elsewhere. Ban’thalos doesn’t give you that luxury, and will be VERY high up. Massive fall damage is to be expected once you aggro him. It’s likely that you’ll need some way to mitigate this. Coercing a buddy with access to a toon that has slowfall or levitate seems like a good option. After all, the support classes (i.e. non-hunters) should do something useful once in a while, right? If you want to be even more pro, a well-timed Disengage will also do the trick, but the timing is more dangerous. Parachutes are also options for those who have them.Where: Map

The 5 New Spider Pets (non-exotic)

Not being a avid PvP’er, these appeal to me less, and I’m disappointed that Blizzard includes no less than 5 of them instead of giving us more options. But they also provide many unique challenges that may be worth the experience even if the pets themselves have limited usefulness.Requirements: You will need 20 Marks of the World Tree, daily rewards for quests in the Sanctuary of Malorne in Hyjal. These will allow you to open a portal to the area where the following pets are located.

Skitterflame
I enjoy the gimmick here, because it actually employs an oft-used hunter skill: kiting. Skitterflame has an energy bar that represents his “heat.” To tame him, we need to cool him off, using traps and our kiting prowess. Nearby lava pools will replenish his energy, which can be useful as well, since Skitterflame will die if his energy bar reaches zero. MM seems like a no-brainer here, as it has Readiness to give us the most tools for kiting until we are able to start the tame.Where: Firelands, Fireplume Peak. Map.

Solix
Soliz has this, which is not a typo. His attack speed is increased 1000%. Some very shocked, and very dead hunters are sure to bang their heads over this one. I’ve heard conflicting reports on him. He will either need to be stunned in order to be tamed, or kited and dps’d until he drops a debuff that makes him tameable. There is also a new daily quest that can help, as it gives you a debuff that reduces fire damage dramatically.Where: Map

Kirix
It’s unknown if anything beyond Aspect of the Wild will be needed to counter his main ability, which does nature aoe nature damage, but that is a logical first place to start. There are floating islands that take you to Fireplume Ridge in Firelands, and it appears as though Kirix will be tamable from one of these rides depending on his spawn location. This may be too tricky for some, so there are other ways to deal with him: namely, begin your tame but then interrupt it in order to cast Deterrance on his main damaging ability. Then restart the tame so that you have more time between casts.Where: Firelands, The Furnace. Map.

Anthriss
In what may be yet another subtle nod to the #1 rule of raiding, taming Anthriss will require you to stand in the fire. You’ll want to camp in the nearby lava pools, possibly on the edge of them to go back and forth if his webs are easily timed. However, you will need to be submerged in the lava for it to work, not simply standing in it.Where: Firelands, Magma Springs. Map.

Deth’tilac
The biggest and baddest of the new tameables, Deth’tilac can be solo-tamed but is easier with a group. He has over 37 million in health, and casts Aura of Deth’spair which will makes things hard even with a full group. The key ishis Deth Strike, which kills someone instantly but also removes 10% of Deth’tilac’s health. Due to the encounter taking place in-world, the battle will likely become one of attrition. Bring a large group, so that a chain of ghost-runs can be created to give Deth’tilac an endless supply of characters to kill while he depletes his own health. Then, once he is low, he will lose the debuff that prevents him from being tamed. A second option is to use a series of pet rezzes and kiting to solo tame him.Where: Firelands, Forlorn Spire. Map.

Newest of the New Hunter Pets (non-exotic)

The two new additions to this batch of tameables are, imo, also the coolest looking. They’re also not BM-only, so you can actually show them off in a more diverse array of settings. As a tactical aside, completing the Druids of the Talon quest chain in Firelands seems to be a great help at Fireplume Ridge (where a LOT of these pets are found) as they will often save you from death if you fall off the floating island ledges that the pets are located on.

Requirements: Much like the spiders, you will need 20 Marks of the World Tree, daily rewards for quests in the Sanctuary of Malorne in Hyjal. These will allow you to open a portal to the area where the following pets are located.

Karkin (Gem Crab {Petopia Link})
While I feel like Blizzard dropped the ball with no “RELEASE THE KARKIN” announcements (maybe they didn’t and I missed it), at least the skin is original and cool. Both Karkin and Skarr are in a no-fly zone, and will require some tricky ledge-jumping. One of the more unique ideas for tough jumps that I thought up (not in direct relation to this tame, but it may have relevance) is to bring a friend, enter a duel with him so that you’re in combat, and you will then have access to Disengage. This, combined with some fancy mousework, will allow for longer jumps when necessary. Stories of tames from adjacent islands have already surfaced, and this seems like the safest first option, if possible, for taming both Karkin and Skarr. In contrast to early PTR tames, however, Karkin is now immune to traps, so some of the earlier tames that simply Trap Launched + Tamed are no longer applicable. Rocket boots and parachutes also seem like relevant options if you have access to them. There are stories surfacing of simply leading with Silencing Shot and then taming for both Karkin and Skarr, though, so they may not be the hardest of tames.Where: Firelands, Fireplume Peak. Both Karkin and Skarr share two possible spawn points, located here and here.

Skarr (Non-Exotic Cat {Petopia Link})
Rowr! My favorite skin by far. It instantly reminded me of the famous Drizzt Do’Urden cat companion Guenwyvar, which is a reference I’m sure many of you will recognize. From the few confirmed tames that I’ve read and/or seen the screenshots of, it looks like we simply jump onto his floating island and begin the tame immediately. He does progressively bigger damage, so it’s not an easy tame. Things like tank consumables and haste buffs (which, unless it’s been nerfed since it was a trick back in Wrath, will decrease the time needed to cast the tame) seem like they’ll be useful.Where: Firelands, Fireplume Peak. See Karkin’s details for maps.

Which also provides some nice screenshots to get a sense of what will be required for the island-jumping. Simple targeting macros are also as useful as they’ve always been, to go along with our already robust tracking abilities.

I always like to get some new pets…only problem is my stable is so full that my gator sleeps on top of my corehound now. So….maybe a few more slots. (hint hint…wink wink)

BTW – As much as I like to see new pet skins I’d also like to see some refinement in the pet buff system. They become completely superfluous in 10 and 25 man raids as only the least desirable buffs do not get overwritten. Heck, I am hard pressed to come up with a pet in some 5 man heroics that does not have the buff overwritten. Don’t get me wrong…I love the concept of pet buffs. However, the execution of the idea is pretty stale.

I’ve never posted here before but wanted to do so now because of the hype over these new tameable pets. Apologies if comment is too long or doesn’t fit the post.

In my opinion these kinds of tameable pets aren’t too nice for a hunter. Some of the pets, like Ankha/Magria, are fine because those only require 1 person, the hunter. Taming pets should be soloable thing for hunter to do, it should be challenging of course, like some of those spiders are, but Deth’tilac went bit too far imo.

I think hunter should be taming the pet alone. I’d like to compare these new pet tames to hunter’s Ancient petrified leaf quest chain, where hunter had to use his abilities to defeat demons all over Azeroth. Those kills required skills, but were soloable and needed to be soloed or the demon would just kill you instantly. That is what these pet tames should be in my opinion. Soloable but challenging. The need of full raid group for a spider is just ridiculous.

I disagree, and the short reason is because moments of triumph are best with an audience present. The longer reason is that the day i wrangled four guildmates to put their skills to the sole purpose of helping me acquire a Grimtotem Spirit Guide lives forever in my heart as the best time I’ve had in my guild.
As a hunter, I’m used to going alone. With my pet by my side i’m my own group and can accomplish great things without anyone watching. Soloing old raids and dungeons, doing current quests that have lesser classes begging /1 for groups. I can do it by myself. But that’s not as fun as sharing the Hunter experience with others. Getting a handful, or even a whole raid together to get involved in what it means to be a hunter.
Think about Deth’ilac as our own Legendary. A raid coming together for one of its own.

You can solo Deth’tilac. I’ve got him on two of my hunters. Clear regular spiders around the area you’ll run him. Send in the pet for sacrifice to take off 10% of his health. Have ice trap and explosive trap down in front of him (throw in the snake trap for good measure) and as he slowly makes his way to you rez your pet. The damaging trap keeps his aggro on you, otherwise you can get so far ahead he’ll lose interest and reset. Misdirection to the pet and repeat the pet sacrifices until he’s low enough in health to be able to cast a kill shot. Then you know his health is low enough to tame. Rez your pet one last time and dismiss him or you can’t tame. Toss out those last ice and explosive traps and tame him as he walks to you.

I can’t wait! The best part is that the competetion for the staff is going to be SO LOW cause the polearm is better for hunters and, at least in my guild, I’m the only main spec feral, though our current boomkin may be switching to kitty with 4.2 :(

I will have Deth’tilac, mainly because it’s like the uber tame as far as process goes, and also because I think he’s the best looking of the spiders. One thing I am worried about though. In the past aggro becomes an issue with taming, so I am curious how it will work out.

You could potentially have a decent threat lead on other people helping you simply through the process of sacrificing them. I am also wondering if Deth Strike is interruptable, that way you could bring someone to interrupt the cast if he starts on you mid tame.

I really wish I was doing PTR stuff on my hunter instead of my druid so I could get some more details.

For Deth’tilac in the (the one on May23rd) previous weeks build I was able to tame him by using a mix of kiting and chain resurrecting my pet. It took a long time to get my timing of my pets resurrection and using those rocks to give me an advantage (and much needed distance). Just a heads up for those without raid groups available this method was a lot of fun.

For boosting haste, there are quite a few items one can get to really hurry up the taming. For some Wrath suggestions, see http://huntsmanslodge.com/8014/taming-the-beast/ (comments too). I imagine one can do better now, but here’s what I used for taming The Beast at 80:
– spellweave gloves (cheap on AH, 65 haste) + engineering hyperspeed accelerators (340 haste on use)
– Foresight’s Anticipation trinket (quest reward from Dragonblight that I’d not done, 40 haste + 148 on use)
– all the normal stuff (Herkumi war token, random haste gear)
– Elixir of Lightning Speed (+45)
– potion of speed (+500)
– I also swapped out my normal weapons for some with haste on, including Orb of the Eastern Kingdoms as a filler

That comes out to 1463 haste and roughly halved the tame time at 80. If updated to Cata items, with reforging, plus ancient hysteria on top, I imagine a speed tame could be very fast indeed.

I am a Hunter-For-Life kind of deal, so seeing these 10 new tames is a pretty romantic escapade. In my opinion: who cares if there are 2 kittehs and 5 spiders! These are creatures THAT NO ONE ELSE CAN GET. I don’t see the problem (never will).

Sure they may seem like boring creatures, but the way we have to tame them is pretty heroic in some favors. I have never had to stand in the fire or do some trick jumps to tame any of the other SB’s or any pet for that matter. Seeing these 10 very diverse challenges is something that probably will never happen again. I like the idea that Disengage is going to have a better use than simply running away from a tough tame.

Cannot wait till 4.2 comes out, I get my 20 marks, then my guild is going to help me attain server first Deth’Tilac:D BRING IT ON YAAAAR

The problem is 4 of the 5 spiders will be identical to their common counterparts once tamed. It’s a nice challenge, but you’ll have nothing to show for it.

I know we’re getting very close to the patch, but I’d like to see those 4 common-skinned spiders replaced with unique skins of other species, preferably useful ones. There are still un-used skins in the game, and it can’t be that hard to throw a couple of recolours together.

Always fun to have some new cool pets but I’ll second that vote for something other than Cats and Spiders. Firelands would have been a nice chance for a new critter like the Shale Spider to come out to play.

i like the new spiders a lot, i’ts cool to have such a challenge and the choice between colors. isn’t there any other way to get deth’ilac? do you really need help for that? that seems a bit odd to me.

hopefully they add some new unique rare models for those pets that haven’t any yet, like sporebats (!!!), bears and whatever else.. and a spirit spore beast of course. oh, and it’s about time we got a pet with that 5% caster crit debuff too (simply give it to, dunno, nether rays or whatever).

maybe i’ts time for another page full of slots at the stable master, i’m already full with mostly rare pets (a few of them aren’t rare, but i need them for raiding). alone 5 slots go to spirit beasts (of which two loques, don’t ask) take up a lot of space.

after a little thought and reading-up, i’m sure deth’ilac should be very well possible to be tamed solo. get a pet that you can sacrifice and re-rez a few times until he is low enough. he is slowable by frost trap. so keeping distance and rezzing the pet constantly could be the key.

pity he doesn’t keep his deth’strike, this would be an appropriate buff for hunters.

@arth: i can see the fun in sending in gnomes, but apart from that, the challenge of doing it alone sure is more appealing (to me)… :D
apart from that, finding enough ppl to help might be harder for people in small guilds, as you need them to come to your help right away (best with a summon, which not all small guild have either) when you find him. that could be at 3 pm.

your strat requiring a group sure is valid and i don’t argue it at all (that’d be stupid). but it would maybe help if you mentioned the fact that soloing him is possible too, for the loners and hard-boiled pet hunters out there.

Boring. Simply boring.
New skins for Gondria? Dah…
Crab & spiders just… not good enough to reserve couple of slots in stable for them :O(
Wish there will be new SB or at least as cool looking as any of them.

I LOVE the idea about Blizz implementing tame challenges, I really do but I agree that the skins for the two new Spirit Beast cats especially are very bland. Nothing beats Gondria’s skin with the vapour trail she leaves behind her and all. Not to mention that I have a plethora of cats in my stable as it is. There are already so many different cat and spider skins in-game. Give us options for ones that are not abundant in Azeroth. I also adore the newest cat addition, it must be said (Guenhwyvar HELLS YEAH) and I will defs be making space for that one.

It’s nice they’re adding new pets in 4.2, but I’m rather disappointed that they don’t seem to have plans to make the hydras tamable after all. I was really looking forward to finally having a pet besides my wolf to use while raiding, since our group needs the 5% crit buff. Now that hydras actually do seem to have proper support to exist (for those who tamed them while you still could) it’d be really nice if more of us could get them.

I’m looking forward to this new challenge in taming the new pets come patch 4.2, as all the current spirit beasts is all just about camping waiting for the spawns, even though i have just had time to get the last current spirit beast tamed take a look :) http://youtu.be/efXbNX7ddig Btw Skarr is top of my list for taming! and Cheers for sharing the info

Is there any indication that any of these pets will only be available during a particular phased stage of Firelands content? In other words, if a hunter plows his or her way through the phased content, will a pet be missed and the chance to tame lost forever?

I was REALLY hoping the rare spiders would provide more DPS than the normal spiders – really just giving you bragging rights, which is not necessary since we’re awesome class by itself, without a rare pet…

This is a little late in coming (my post) but I was perusing and saw this. I tamed Deth, but not in the way that all the ‘guides’ say to tame him. I kited him. For 2 hours around the Molten front with only a small handful of people helping me with heals (as best they could manage) and dealing with ancillary aggro from the patting giants and worms. The effort took a lot of time and patience, but it was worth it for the sense of accomplishment. I am on a PvP server, so I had constant worries over Hordies ganking me or tying to otherwise cheat me out of my new pet.

In the end? I tamed that SOB to an audience of several dozen on-lookers, most notably of which were three Horde hunters that were leaping with congratulatory excitement around and over me. Just goes to show that sometimes being a hunter transcends faction.

For Ban’thalos you can tame him in the air. You can land on top of the tall tree to the left behind the statue. A bit of a challenge to accomplish the first time but it gets a bit easier once you know how to position your flying mount. Using a smaller flying mount helps you get into position. As Ban’thalos comes near, fly straight up (you can be slightly lower than he is to reduce your fall damage), dismount and shoot him using a macro that stops your casting. You fall straight down to the tree top, drop the Freezing Trap and start the tame.

FYI for everyone to know, when you go into molten front and you jump on the gust onto the island where skarr etc is, you’ll get a buff that gives 100% haste, i used that and tamed skarr before he finished one cast, used this for the other ones as well(besides deathtilac)

Deth’tilac is the only one of the 10 I need…I have all 9 spirit beasts already so that collection is done, and I just recently found and tamed Skitterflame and Karkin. Collecting them all has proved to be a difficult challenge, but one I was happy I took up in the first place. I’m Beast mastery duel spedded, but if I decide to go something different I have some pretty cool pets in my stable ^_^. Just take your time and enjoy the hunt.

If you want to tame Ban’thalos on your own without parachutes or other gimmicks, it is possible. Fly to the semicircle of white marble on the southwest of his flight path and stand on it with your mount. Then hit space to fly straight up. Ban will fly past here where you can dismiss your mount and shoot him at his closest point and still survive the fall with about 1/3 of your health, which should be enough to keep you alive until he is tamed. The key is to make sure you land right on that white marble thing and that you only fly as high as you need to to just get into range.